Police in Wales were contacted by US Homeland Security after a 29-year-old from Cardiff targeted the children in their home state of Maine

A man used an internet chatroom discussing superstar Justin Bieber to incite two young girls to perform sex acts on each other.

Police in Wales were contacted by US Homeland Security after 29-year-old Benjamin Mahoney targeted the children, aged 11 and 12, in their home state of Maine.

Mahoney used the social networking site Tinychat, an instant chat and messaging website, and met the girls in a chat room relating to Canadian star Bieber.

Posing as “LOU”, Mahoney initially befriended the two girls in March 2011, telling them he had a seven-year-old sister. But his tone soon changed.

“After a while he bullied, intimidated and threatened them by saying he had pictures of them that he would post over the internet,” Matthew Roberts, prosecuting, told Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.

“He would do this unless they did what he asked and engaged in sexual activity with each other over a webcam which the defendant then told them he videoed.

“Both these young girls were concerned and did not know whether this was someone who knew them, who lived down the street or elsewhere.”

Although he could see them, they never saw him because he didn’t have a webcam.

The girls were made to perform sexual acts on themselves and each other.

“They were frightened and in one victim’s own words ‘We were just doing everything he said’,” said Mr Roberts.

“They did it because in their words ‘he meant business and he was not joking around’.”

When the girls sent an email to Mahoney telling him they were going to call the police he replied: “Okay, congratulations. I am posting your video all over the net, so get the police, enjoy your fame. Goodbye.”

The girls, fearing they might be in trouble themselves for issues relating to images of child abuse, then confided in teachers who informed the Sheriff’s department.

They handed over Mahoney’s email address, which was in turn passed onto Homeland Security who used it to set up a “sting”, sending him an email posing as one of the girls.

The court heard Mahoney’s reply was all they needed to eventually trace him to the home he shared with his mother at Parc-y-Fro, Creigiau, Cardiff.

Mahoney denied four counts of inciting a child under the age of 16 to engage in sexual activity and two of making indecent photographs but was found guilty after trial.

Ruth Smith, defending Mahoney, said: “He is a young man that does accept that there would have been some psychological affect.

“One victim does say that she actually perceived that had the first incident not have happened they could have been friends.

“He has suffered with depression in the past and he has already found the custodial setting an extremely unpleasant environment that has led to him, at times, being placed on watch to ensure he does not harm himself.”

Mahoney blew a kiss to his mother in the public gallery as he was jailed for five years.

Judge Richard Twomlow told him: “You went to a Justin Bieber chat room which you knew would be used by teenage girls.

“Your activities were just as upsetting as if you had been in close proximity to them.

“These were calculated and serious offences and you have been described in the pre-sentence report as manipulative and predatory.

“You have shown no remorse whatsoever. You have not pleaded guilty to anything. You still deny the offences despite the overwhelming evidence.

“The blackmail element of the offences is a serious aggravating feature.”

Mahoney will also have to sign as a sex offender and was made the subject of an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order prescribing his use of internet-accessing devices and limiting his contact with females under the age of 16.

The girls should have been 13 years old to register on the site but told Mahoney they were 15, the court heard.

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